My Journey to becoming an Ironman

Guest Blog – Miia Amara

As promised to you all a few weeks ago, here is the guest blog from Miia Amara. For those who follow the blog, you may remember that Miia is the lady I have been coaching this season. She had agreed to write a final piece to this 3 part series and here it is!

If you didn’t catch the first two blogs, you can find Coaching Project Part 1 by clicking here. Part 2 is also available here. I have thoroughly enjoyed coaching Miia this season and it has been pleasing for me to trial my own coaching practices and adapt these to someone else. I’ve been asked by people in the past to help and have always been hesitant due to the time it takes. Coaching to this level requires time – time to analyse, time to plan, time to schedule, time to spend with your athlete. I was only going to do this with someone who was committed and wanting to achieve. Miia was certainly that, and I couldn’t have asked for a better student! Anyway, enough of me…enjoy her blog! It’s been one great first season and I’m looking forward to seeing what she achieves next year.

Hello all! I’m Miia and I want to share my
experience and story of my debut season competing in triathlon this year. I do
hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I have enjoyed my first year racing
and training.

I got into triathlon racing last summer,
when my triathlete friend from Finland entered me into an Olympic distance
relay. As I have been running for a couple
of years, I contributed to the running section of the race. During the race and after observing the other competitors,
I wondered how they managed do all three disciplines together, when I was struggling
with just the running stage.

When I got back home, I supported my
running friends in one of London’s Triathlon events and I was hooked!! The atmosphere
alone got me. I decided there and then – next year I WILL BE HERE!

Soon after, I started to look for races for
the following year. After signing up to
a few, I started to learn how to swim freestyle, which was new for me. I actually looked at a few tutoring videos
from YouTube, and bit-by-bit I learnt to swim freestyle. How well I was doing
this was another question!

I knew Danny from our running club and his heavy involvement participating in triathlon. He approached me and asked if I wanted to train for a triathlon. Everything about triathlon was completely new to me. How would I ever swim in a wetsuit in open water?

We first met at the local swimming pool. I showed him what I had learned and he worked with me teaching me the right technique with freestyle swimming. This made a massive difference to what I thought was the correct form. Over the months, I worked on my swimming and slowly improved. Not only did my technique improve, but also my speed. Soon after, I bought my very first road bike and I was ready to go.

Danny tested my swim, bike and run times first in December, and soon after that I was on a full training program that he had designed for me. I had my first race in my sights for early May – a sprint distance over in Dorney. Luckily, Danny had signed up himself for this one so he would be there to support me at the race.

When I started the training, it was completely
different to what I had done before. It was pretty much two work outs daily
four to five times a week around my work timetable. That sounds quite a lot,
but actually it was very manageable. It
worked for me very well. After six weeks of training, he tested me again and I could
already see how much I had improved. I very much liked the training program
part. My social life was getting shortened
certainly, but I didn’t mind because the only thing in my mind was on those finish
lines and medals from those races that I had signed up to. Triathlon can be a
scary sport, with much to master, so being prepared and training well helps
with any fears.

I had so many questions for Danny, especially in the beginning, but he always had an answer ready for me. I learned how my body worked when it was fatigued and also how much rest was needed. Plus – eating crap food made you feel crap! Nutrition was so important. One thing I quickly realised was that there is a big difference between what training and exercise is. Training = structure and doing the correct workouts at the correct time. This is where the coaching part was so important and having someone to guide me through this process made life easy.

Learning about my heart rate zones and running in your prescribed zones was challenging. It took me around two months to get use to it. You learn a lot about your body and what running feels like at an easy or racing pace. This is important as looking at a watch all the time is not the most enjoyable thing! Patience is key though! Things do not happen over night. Most Sundays when I was off from work, we started to ride outside. I was lucky because this seemed to be my strongest discipline. I could keep up with his pace and it pushed me to make improvements. We had many good rides up to 60 miles. Rainy Sundays we knocked on the head though and the stationary turbo that I bought on Danny’s recommendation came into its own. You can’t train effectively without one of these!

The first time going into open water was a
bit scary for me. I took open water
training sessions as recommended by Danny. I seemed to have a problem with dark
water. I don’t know where it came from. I’m Finnish and I grew up next to lakes, but after
a couple of times going into open water, the fear disappeared and I could swim normally.

When the first race in May came around I
was nervous and excited at the same time. Danny told me not to worry and that I was
going to love it because I had put the work in through my training. The swim went well and my overall time was quicker
than I expected. When I was on the bike, I truly enjoyed it and
I knew that this was what I wanted to do. The cycle part was faster than expected and my
run was also very good, even managing to sprint in the end. I was happy for my achievement.
Now I could say that I am triathlete!

After the race and a couple of days rest I was back to training. Training went smoothly until the Easter break until a small disaster struck! I went for a ride on my own, and had an ‘off’ from my bike. The accident was something so stupid which could have been avoided. I flew over my handlebars and landed on my shoulder and left side of my face. All because I was fiddling with my phone in its holder and grabbing my brake too hard!

I was lucky it was only bruising in my
shoulder and a little crack on my cheekbone. I had to take a week off from
training because my shoulder was so painful. Swimming and biking (especially
outdoors) was extremely painfil. After a week, I started slowly again and it
took for a while before I managed to train without pain. And eventually I was
soon back to track workouts. I didn’t loose much fitness thankfully as I was
following the plan fully from beginning and it gave a little enforced rest.

At the end off June I took on my first Olympic distance triathlon that I had been training for all spring. I had a tapering week that Danny set for me and I felt so ready to race that I couldn’t wait for race day. We went there together. Danny’s wave was first. It was the hottest day of the year +35c at midday when I started. Even though it was hot and humid, I was sure I could manage. My swim went well and I had a good bike leg. I was flying! But in the run the heat got me – I was knackered. Did I overcook the bike? I managed to the finish line and it was obvious that my run was slow. One thing I learnt though – heat affects performance so don’t be too hard on yourself.

I had another race at the end of July – The London Triathlon. I thought that this would be the one I will do a PB in. My Training program finished at the end of June and I was on my own from then to this race. I had the tools and workouts to do though to keep a good level of fitness. I managed to organise my training off of those programs that Danny had planned for me.

When the London Tri came around, the
weather was not ideal. It was raining in the morning. This was not what I wanted for race day, but the
weather was a lot cooler. By the start of
my race, the rain had stopped and I was ready to go. My swim was a bit slower than
in my last race, my bike was pretty much the same. The one thing I learned and
took into this race was pacing better. I
managed to save energy for running and I ran faster than last time out. The
cooler weather certainly helped. Overall I had PB’d by a couple minutes over 3
hours. My goal next year – sub 3 for sure!

I actually had two more races left for the season – one in Finland (Olympic distance) and The London Duathlon in Richmond. I even changed that one from half to full distance. Training wise, I trained less and was not as fit as earlier in the season. I have two children and they were off from school for their summer holidays. I couldn’t do my daily routines plus I started to feel mentally tired. I finished both races, and I was happy with the timing. Not the fastest ones but not far away. Now I will take couple weeks rest then a couple months gym training – possibly Cross Fit for toning by body.

Before Christmas I can start to get ready for next year. I am in the ballot for the London marathon. If I get in, that will be my first marathon – something to consider! I want to complete more endurance events and go longer, so it will be half iron man distance for me…. plus I will be in new age category turning 45 in march so hopefully I will manage to stay above 50% of the age category field. This I have managed to achieve in pretty much all my races that I completed in. I will also take on a few shorter races but not as many as I had this year. I didn’t mention that I did the amazing Dunamo Dunwitch (112 miles) night ride and 1500m dock to dock swim. This on top of running PBs for half marathon and 10km in spring time. You see – a busy season! Danny says I raced too much…I have to agree!

I hope you have enjoyed my blog entry…what next season holds…let’s wait and see!